Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us this afternoon.
There were very interesting comments from our witnesses today. It's interesting to get their comments on how we can better incentivize the work that needs to be done, particularly here in Canada.
Dr. Wright, as an alum from McMaster, I welcome and thank you for everything you're doing, including the work at the Global Nexus School for Pandemic Prevention and Response.
Recently, we heard from a couple of witnesses who spoke about the concern from the Health Canada special access programs in terms of the development of the antimicrobial therapies. They mentioned that only three out of 18 new antibiotics launched worldwide are available here in Canada, and the notion of what that impact is. On Monday, we had a Dr. Hamelin come forward. She said that Canada is last in the G7 in providing access to medicines. She indicated that that's for all medicines, and I think that touches on some of the comments you made with regard to push and pull.
You mentioned, Dr. Wright, the notion of funding for the research side. You indicated the work that you—among many—have done and the $1.4 billion that this is costing our provincial health care systems, yet we're spending only $1.25 billion at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research right now, prior to a budget in a couple of weeks. We've heard indications from the government that they've talked to their agencies and departments and are asking them to find savings of 15% over the next three years, so precious dollars could be limited in that capacity.
It's quite concerning to consider that they're estimating a budget deficit of about $68 billion to service our debt, when we're spending only $52 billion on health care. In fact—I repeated this earlier—what's more shocking is that the Province of Ontario spends—for the province—$80 billion, while we're spending only $52 billion for an entire country.
I'd like to ask a question with regard to how we go about furthering those push incentives and opening up the availability through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to ensure that more research dollars flow to the AMR side, as opposed to other initiatives, because you're saying that under peer review it seems to be that the larger issues of concern, such as cancer, get more of the funding than, say, an AMR study would.